


grovel in gain

by ezziesworld (orphan_account)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, excessive self pity, he tries, uncomfortable Joker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24273286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ezziesworld
Summary: You were dumped, and the only person to confide in happens to be the homicidal clown who uses your apartment as a safe house. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Relationships: Joker/platonic reader
Kudos: 26





	grovel in gain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for someone on Tumblr. I will say comfort fics are not in my forte, but I really did have quite a lot of fun writing this, lol!

The original plan was to laugh at their unrealistic and quite frankly, _implausible_ happy-ever-afters and inhale an entire tub of chocolate-chunk ice cream without the faintest hint of shame. Glancing down at your lap, you see you’ve completed one of those tasks with an ease you’d rather not acknowledge—it’s down to the bottom of the carton, a gorge of residual chocolate brown around the edges like a miniature iteration of the Grand Canyon. You sniffle, blink the bleary wet from your eyes and dive into the side of the canyon with a stabbing motion, breaking off a spoonful before shoving it into your mouth. 

It doesn’t even taste good, anymore. It’s too sweet, it’s giving you a toothache and you find the irony in the situation as you watch the onscreen couple embrace through fields of flowing tall grass, the sunset behind them looking like an enormous (and digitally altered, there’s just _no way_ that’s real) gold dollar coin, partially dipped beneath the horizon to shadow their beautiful faces with a light that pronounces their angled cheeks and their chiseled jaws. They bring their mouths together in a kiss, perfect lips touching perfect lips and all is well and good in their world, they love each other and they’re never leaving each other and—

_Urgh._

No one loves like that. Not now, not ever—love is fickle, love is turbulent, an ever rising and falling wave in an ocean of disappointment and heartbreak, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll find a life-preserver, a buoy among crashing tides to keep you afloat long enough until it deflates and you _drown_. 

_Now you’re just being dramatic._

You stab your ice cream again. It sticks, juts from the rocky wall of chocolate-chunk and you stare at it, your fingers loosening around the sticky handle of it and think that you don’t want anymore, then you wrap your fingers around it, break off another piece and bite into it. The cold on your front teeth is sharp, you wince and then come to the conclusion that every-fucking-thing hurts right now, and— _dammit why am I so emotional?_

You start to cry. You cry and eat your ice cream as the credits roll on the screen, slow enough so you can read the names of the characters, so you can remember how they found the love of their lives and you’re sitting on your couch in your dim living room with a blanket draped over your shoulders and a bucket of ice cream in your lap and you keep eating it, detesting the sweetness of it on your tongue and then you think— _am I a masochist?_

Like the answer to the question isn’t obvious enough, your front door is jimmied open and swings with a careless amount of force into the wall behind it. His figure is looming, shadowed like a demon in the night against the florescent lights in the hallway of the apartment complex, and then he steps inside and oh look—he’s smiling. _At least someone’s happy._

“Hiya, sweet-cheeks.” He ambles into your apartment with a nonchalance that contradicts the prominent splatter of what you could only assume is blood, dried a sickening brown against the verdant hue of his vest. You’re overcome with the thought of getting that stain out, how fucking difficult it was to get his clothes clean the last time, and the _chunks_ —adhering to the cloth like the rotten pulp of an orange—and then he stops in his casual peruse of your darkened apartment to cock his head and eye you down. 

“Hi.” You give him a quick once over, then stick the spoon in your mouth and cringe at the cold bite against your teeth. You sniffle, implore yourself to be indifferent and he looks rather disappointed, if you don’t know any better. 

Granted, the last few times he entered your apartment were through the window, climbing up the fire escape and cracking the ancient lock with a loudness you’re positive was intentional. He made it a point to be ostentatious, if only to gather a reaction, but really, at this point you’re used to his antics. Not to mention: scrubbing the brain matter out of a dress shirt tends to condition you to the more horrific features that life has to offer—especially a life that involves him. 

He narrows his eyes, the white sclera vanishes among a cavern of black, at the center onyx gemstones that glimmer with curiosity. He blinks slowly, approaches and then plops his lengthy frame down on the sofa with a loud, exaggerated sigh. You glance at him, find that he reeks of gasoline and something acrid and sour. The blood that permeates his vest is heady, and then _you_ sigh. 

“Take your vest off.” You say, stabbing the spoon into the remainder of your ice cream before leaning forward and placing it on the table, beside a tall stack of rented romantic comedies. Your attention lingers a moment on the titles, on the myriad of font that labels the spine of each plastic casing—whimsical, meant to be endearing, to lighten your mood and give you a laugh, but oddly enough you find you’d rather clean the remains of some poor saps grey matter off The Joker’s vest than watch another one. 

“Well, didn’t expect you to be so, ah _forward_ about it. Finally got tired of, uh—” He snaps his gloved fingers, makes a show of licking his lip and rolling his eyes as though he’s actually trying to think about it, “Drew? _Dave?_ No—no, it was something _stupid_ like Dan—”

“Dean.” You say, and then your voice cracks involuntarily, and really, crying right now is the _last_ thing you wanted but a wave of uncontrollable sadness rushes through you so quick you don’t have time to erect your mental dam. Your eyes water and sting and he visibly draws back with a minuscule shake of his head, like he’s seen something truly shocking. He’s looking at you like you grew a second head, like you’re speaking tongues, and you can’t help it, you lean forward and press your forehead against his hard shoulder and you cry. 

He stiffens, goes ridged and he coughs awkwardly— _that’s a first_. He’s uncomfortable, and somewhere in your rampaging emotions you’re surprised he doesn’t shove you off him and onto the floor—and then he moves with a strange robotic efficiency, raising a hand and patting you atop your head like you’re a stray puppy. It’s callous, a little too rough and it makes the headache that’s slowly turning in your skull amplified but then again, it’s _something_. 

“Uh…I’m usually pretty good with, ah, _people_ —but this is not in my forte, sweet-cheeks—”

“He fucking—fucking _texted_ me—what kind of asshole sends a text?” You blabber, sniffle and you can’t see his face but you can picture the distaste that snarls his upper lip with the way he pats your head harder. “Two years—that’s a long fucking time, J! Two years gone with a fucking text and I-I—I’m sitting here, watching _stupid_ bullshit _romantic comedies_ and eating ice cream like somehow that’ll make me feel better—”

“Oh-kay—” He cuts you off, smacks both hands down on your narrow shoulders and jerks you upright with an unnecessary amount of force until your rod-straight. His mouth is curled into a sneer that crinkles the white greasepaint around his nose, and really he looks _incredibly_ annoyed and that makes you cry more. You think about how other women have girlfriends to console them, to eat ice cream with them and watch romantic comedies with them, and you—well, you have _him_ , and that is a depressing thought all on it’s own. 

“Stop. Stop—just. _Stop_.” He shakes you as he says it, jerks you forward and back by your shoulders and there’s a sliver of strained comfort lilting his words, turning his high facetious tone into something that is quite literally the opposite of comforting. 

“C’mon—what’s there to, uh, _cry_ about? You’ve got no _ball and chain_ —that’s cause for celebration.” He tacks on, gesticulating with a hand in the air as though it’s something grand, a broad, unnerving grin splitting his mangled mouth and revealing a maw of stained and filthy yellow teeth. Knitting your brows, you stare at him and come to the conclusion that he really does not understand, like, _at all._

“You’ve never been in a relationship, have you?” You’re pretty sure you know the answer to that, but you find it frustrating how absolutely detached he is from your obvious struggle. How you have no one but this purple and green clad menace to turn to when the solidness of your life quakes beneath your feet and he doesn’t have the mind to reach out and steady you with a gentle hand. 

_Gentle. The Joker? Now that’s funny._

His smile drops and it’s a strange sight, the permanent Cheshire grin on his face alongside the down-turned corners of his mangled lips reminds you of the theater masks printed on flyers, like the one you have in your purse from your last date with Dean. He cocks his head again, looks at you through the narrowed half-mast of his eyelids and licks his lip, slowly. 

“Do I look like the uh, _relationship_ type?” 

You roll your eyes. He takes a deep breath, inhaling through his nose and straightening his spine like he’s calling upon the forces that be to give him the ability of understanding. 

“Listen—you’ve got the power of _freedom_ right now. Why cry about something as, uh, _menial_ as _love?”_ The word ‘love’ leaves his lips like it left a bad taste in his mouth, sour and coarse on his tongue. “And _freedom_ —well that’s unparalleled. Why would you _grovel_ in gain, hmm?” 

He looks at you beneath his brows, tilts his chin against his chest and it’s a little condescending, but you realize that this is his version of comfort. 

Oddly enough, it helps. A fresh perspective—unhinged and wild as he is, he’s got a point—and suddenly the thought of spending your nights with Dean are trivial, time-wasting, _pointless_. It’s like he can see the revelation on your face, the corner of his lips curling and his scars bunching with a simpering smile, and then he reaches out, pats your cheek with his gloved palm and cocks his head with a jeering quirk. 

“You can do _whatever_ you want—” an insinuating bounce of his brows makes the gesture tiresome, “ _whoever_ you want.” 

_Is it physically impossible for this man to be serious for more than ten seconds?_

You scoff, pull away from his hand and take the extra effort of grabbing his wrist, pulling it down between you two. 

“Thanks for the offer, but I’m gonna pass.” You reply, and although he is the definition of _exasperating_ , you find yourself smiling. He doesn’t take offence, simply shrugs his broad shoulders and reaches, without hesitation, for the remains of your ice cream on the coffee table. Like the entire exchange didn’t happen, _but you both know it did_ , you’ll remember his fleeting comfort when he drowns it out with his next victim. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” You ask after a moment of comfortable silence. He’s scraping the carton with the spoon, eradicating the walls of the chocolate-chunk canyon. Glancing at the tall stack of movies, he scrunches his nose and drops the spoon into the now empty container, tossing it onto the coffee table.

“Dean-o got a car?” He licks his lips, draws the residual chocolate off them with his pink tongue and it takes you a second to register it. His eyes are gleaming with a wicked type of mischief you know all too well. 

“Yeah, he does. Oh-five Camry.” 

He hums, clicks his tongue off the roof of his mouth and then abruptly stands. 

“Relatively easy to hot-wire.” He muses, and then you smile. 

“I’ve got a spare key.” 

His grin splits his face, looking pleased with your reply and suddenly animated at the implications of wreaking more havoc, even if it’s against someone as insignificant as Dean. You’d like to take more meaning to it, to think that he’s going out of his way to make you feel better, and then he says,

“I knew there’s a reason I haven’t, uh, _killed_ you yet.” It’s a joke, and there is a monumental amount of irony in that. You take it in stride, shrug the blanket off your shoulders and stand from the sofa. 

“Then who would get those pesky stains out of your suit?” 

He huffs a laugh that sounds surprisingly genuine, eyes you down from his level and then he reaches up, boops your nose and says, 

“Dry cleaners, _sweetheart_.” 


End file.
